Letters: Atheist billboard was money well spent

Aug. 27, 2011

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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The view of Backyard Skeptics, an Orange County based atheist group, as seen from the Santa Ana Auto Mall. Bruce Gleason, the organizing director of Backyard Skeptics believes atheism is more peaceful, more tolerant and more moral.  //ADDITIONAL INFO: There are over 15% of those in Orange County who have no particular religious affiliation -  some are agnostics and some are atheists. Since non-believers do not have a church or synagogue to go to, Backyard Skeptics is a way for those non-believers to join an Orange County based group which believes that you can be good without a god. Bruce Gleason, the organizing director of Backyard Skeptics and an advocate of atheism says a rationally based non-theistic world view (vs. a faith based one) is  more peaceful, more tolerant and more moral.  Gleason says that this minority of non-believers need a community as well - without religious dogma. Those interested can visit backyardskeptics.com and see if this group would be an interesting place to meet other non-believers.  sa.atheist billboard.0818.cy 08/17/11 CINDY YAMANAKA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER - CQ's CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The view of Backyard Skeptics, an Orange County based atheist group, as seen from the Santa Ana Auto Mall. Bruce Gleason, the organizing director of Backyard Skeptics believes atheism is more peaceful, more tolerant and more moral.  //ADDITIONAL INFO: There are over 15% of those in Orange County who have no particular religious affiliation -  some are agnostics and some are atheists. Since non-believers do not have a church or synagogue to go to, Backyard Skeptics is a way for those non-believers to join an Orange County based group which believes that you can be good without a god. Bruce Gleason, the organizing director of Backyard Skeptics and an advocate of atheism says a rationally based non-theistic world view (vs. a faith based one) is  more peaceful, more tolerant and more moral.  Gleason says that this minority of non-believers need a community as well - without religious dogma. Those interested can visit backyardskeptics.com and see if this group would be an interesting place to meet other non-believers.  sa.atheist billboard.0818.cy 08/17/11 CINDY YAMANAKA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER - CQ's CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Bruce Gleason and the Backyard Skeptics have revealed their agenda to blanket Orange County with billboards. The current billboard quotes a professor of Arab and Islamic Studies, Natalie Khazaal. Khazaal states, “Atheism is philanthropy without mythology, peace without superstition.” At a cost of $6,000 Gleason and Backyard Skeptics believe the billboards give them a “voice.” Gleason warns that upcoming billboards, “will be controversial.”

If you ask me, this is money well spent. The investment has garnered attention for their leader and their cause in the form of two Register articles. Online the message board about these articles has been very active.

The business card for Backyard Skeptics says, “Where people meet and talk without religious dogma.” Gleason and Backyard Skeptics want to let other non-believers know they are not alone.

This is an enviable position. They have freedom of speech, so right or wrong, they can have as much “voice” as they can afford. They can blame religion and God, in particular, for everything historically and currently wrong with the world. They don’t need to prove anything because what they don’t believe in is an opinion, not a formal religion.

So who are Gleason and Backyard Skeptics really? Are they a group of disillusioned finger-pointers, fingers firmly stuck in their ears, chanting, “There is no God. There is no God.” Maybe they are. That doesn’t make them right. Whatever Gleason and Backyard Skeptics are, they make me curious, and sad. I am sad they don’t realize humans are responsible for the evil carried out in God’s name. There is much to be said for accountability and responsibility. When someone refuses to shoulder responsibility, blame, logically has to land somewhere else.

Atheists seem to want to apply logic to God and religion. They apply words like “superstition” and “dogma.” Religion is viewed as a “crutch.” Religious believers are called “arrogant” “suppressive,” “judgmental” and “thin-skinned,” etc. Fortunately, they are a minority, ergo, the billboards.

So as the billboards try to spread the faithless ideology of Gleason and the Backyard Skeptics, I will remain firm in my belief that unless they replace logic, blame or anger with faith in a living and loving God, sooner or later, they will find out how eternally wrong they are.

Garden Grove has no cushion left and has cut services to the community. The City’s police force is way below the number required to adequately serve the community and yet they are doing a great job with what they have.

Garden Grove is in the process of planning major developments along Harbor Blvd. that will attract tourists and residents to spend money here instead of going out of town. It is time that the voters consider a Casino as part of this development.

Casinos on Indian Reservations are packed and residents and tourists spend millions on this type of entertainment that could well be spent in Garden Grove and help the local economy rather than fill the pockets of Indian tribal members who contribute nothing to our local community.

Stanton could contact Garden Grove to share police services with one of the finest, accredited departments in the country.

There are many ways to help make ends meet, we need to look a little deeper and have imagination.

Mr. Krebs is a former Garden Grove Councilman

Plastic bag ban

SANTA ANA, George Kopylow: I read the editorial about banning plastic bags in Huntington Beach with disdain [“Riding the bag-ban wave,” Aug. 21]. I support a ban. The Register editorial says that individuals will do the right thing and “throw them out after they use or reuse them.” In a perfect world this would happen, but that world doesn’t exist.

People have not demonstrated individual responsibility in the past in disposing cigarette butts, diapers, and firework paraphernalia (to name a few). What makes the Register think plastic bag disposal is any different?

Sadly, an island of plastic permanently floats in the Pacific Ocean as a reminder of man’s lack of responsibility. As long as merchants continue to indulge the public with free bags, the public continues to devalue the worth of these bags and hence maintain a devil-may-care attitude about them.

The Register’s view is that it’s the individual’s constitutional right to dispose of plastic bags (or other debris) wherever they like and keep the government out of it. It’s time for the Register to get real and admit that self-discipline is not universal behavior.

First off, kudos to the editorial writer for a reasonable and educated response to offset yet another attempt of nanny government by our city and offset a set of comments by one council member. (As far as I am concerned his many statements /stances and diatribes on city issues are public and raise questions on his ability to serve).

I give this councilman credit though when he said while fishing that he thought a plastic bag was a jelly fish. I made the same mistake myself but at least I knew that the bag was from Whittier via the San Gabriel River. A Huntington Beach business didn’t provide the bag. Hence my point.

This ordinance is akin to gun control, or spay and neuter laws . . . criminals will have guns, and irresponsible dog owners will let dogs roam and breed.

You cannot govern irresponsible people and burden the responsible ones at a cost to them. This is idealistic and, yes, good in its intensions but questionable. As the saying goes, “You cannot change a tiger’s stripes.” “Irresponsible behavior,” as Mayor pro tem Don Hansen said, “will continue and this law will do nothing to change that.”

This is an educational matter not a government matter. Will this law stop the bags washing down the rivers to our beaches from our neighbors inland?

I doubt it, and if you think so you are quite gullible and need to spend time inland educating those folks before they send their trash downstream.

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